14' CREWMAX TRD4X4 HEAVY TOWING QUESTION

Hello everyone. im new here and i have a question about towing my camper with my 14' tundra. My camper weighs about 7500lbs and it seems as if my tundra is "hunting" for a happy gear to be in while pulling it on flat land. it keeps kicking in and out of overdrive and just seems as if the truck is really struggling. would it hurt or be better if i just left the truck in 4th or 5th gear and let it run around 2800rpms or is that killing my motor and tranny. or should i just leave it in drive and let itself "learn" the heavy load until it equals out. im fixing to take a trip with it to the NC mountains and just want to know your guys best opinion on what should i do. 7500lbs should not be to much weight for this truck i wouldn't think.

 

Make sure the tow/haul button is being utilized. Should help keep the truck from hunting for gears, your not maxed on towing capacity but you are getting up there.

 

should i just leave it in drive or would it hurt manually dropping it to 5th gear and leaving it there running about 2700 RPMS?

 

should i use cruise control or no?

 

@ColoradoTJ is the resident towing expert on here.

 

trade it in on a reg cab and youll have the full 10,400lb capacity

 

it will be tough to fit 3 car seats and a wife in a regular cab dont you thank??

 

ya its 7500 LBS loaded 6300 dry. haha ya fuel is no worry im only getting about 8 mpg when towing my travel trailer so i dont pass up many gas stations anyways. i will keep it in D and see how it does without using cruise control. i believe thats where im messing up is trying to use my cruise control while towing it.

thank you so very much for your help.

 

Absolutely!!! i will be heading to the mountains on the 27th of Dec and will report back when i return. Thanks again for all your help and go navy!!!

 

I was always told that you never use cruise control when towing.

If the trailer starts swaying as you crest a hill cruise control can make it worse by maitaining your speed. One of the safest driver responses to sway is to catch it early and coast to a lower speed without using the brakes. With cruise control on you have turn it off by pushing the cancel button (difficult to remember and do quickly under stress) or touch the brakes without pressing too hard.

The 2nd and 3rd generation Tundras with towing packages (and maybe all of them) have an automatic trailer sway control built into the vehicle stability control system (nannies). I've never noticed it activating on my truck, but haven't had any serious trailer sway either so I don't know how well it works. I'm just speculating, but I wouldn't be suprised if part of that feature is to turn off the cruise control if trailer sway is detected.

So I'm going to pull a 180 here and say that using cruise control while towing may be fine with this truck if you have the trailer sway control freature and if it does, in fact, turn off the cruise control when sway is detected.

Anyone out there know for sure? If not I'll start looking into it.

 

I rarely use cruise even when not towing. When I do it is on flat ground. Cruise is definitely where you are screwing up. I tow a 5000 lb bay boat. It does not have the wind resistance of your TT. I never even thought of cruise while towing. I usually use fith unless on flat ground. Always use TH.

 

Always giving good advice @ColoradoTJ !

 

awesome thank you all so very much. i have never experienced a sway issue my truck maintains my camper nice and straight. but will not be using CC anymore while towing it.

 

Let me clarify. I should have stated that "in theory" it "may" be okay to tow with cruise control if the trailer sway control system would cancel the CC while taking other measures to stop sway, but you won't see me doing it.

I had a close call when pulling a poorly loaded trailer full of fire wood for someone else in a Tacoma about 6 years ago. Trailer sway almost flipped the truck, but the wood started falling off the trailer until it became light enough for the truck to control. I'm planning on that being the first and last time that I put myself in that situation.

It looks like the sway control on Tundras pretty much behaves just like the vehicle stability control when it thinks you're taking a corner too fast. It cuts the engine power when sway is detected so you slow down. I found one post that says some electronic sway controls systems use active braking mechanisms to automatically apply left or right brakes as needed to get the trailer sway under control, but it didn't explicitly state that the Tundra system does that.

I'm still not sure whether the cruise control is still active after the sway stops or if you would have to reset it, but I did see that it became standard on all Tundras in 2011. Before that only Tundras with the 5.7L and the towing package had it.

http://www.tundratalk.net/forums/tundra-towing-hauling/85902-trailer-sway-control.html#/topics/85902

 

***UPDATE**** So i have returned from my trip from the Appalachian Mountains pulling my travel trailer (7500LBS) i did not use CC and left the truck in drive and it did much better than using CC. But with that being said 7500lbs on a tundra is a lot of weight and i will not say it pulled it like there was nothing back there i new it was back there every second and every gas station at 7 MPG. I personally thank Toyota is stretching the truth on the 9,000 LBS towing capacity of the 4x4 crewmax. i am a DIE HARD Toyota man i own 4 of them a 90 pickup 4x4 99 4runner 05 4runner and a 14 tundra. but unfortunately i thank there is going to have to be at least 1 different brand in my yard im gonna have to buy a diesel. i wish Toyota would make a 1 ton diesel.

 

Also i must add it pulls WAY WAY WAY better at about 73 versus 65. odd but very true.

 

it would have been hard for me not to tell that guy he was full of sh** and i will be sending you a PM right now

 

how do i PM you?

 

I def agree with you that these things get some shit gas mileage I have 33s and I'm leveled so when I'm towing north of 10k I get like 7 or 8 mpgs and it sucks but whatcanyou do I'd like to see a any other half ton tow what I've had behind my tundra on more than one occasion